Beware of SIM swap hacks! My story

I would like to remind everyone to check with their phone carriers on what is required to swap your number to another SIM card and to make sure your phone provider account has a very strong password.

I was recently SIM swapped via Straight Talk. Straight Talk only required my name, phone number, and the last four digits of my SIM card's serial number (which was easily accessible to the hacker due to already being in my account) in order to move forward with a SIM swap. I was then notified via my Yahoo account of someone accessing my email using 2FA and they sent a text message to my phone to authenticate with. I found it odd because I never received a text message. I figured maybe it was a scammer trying to get me to change my password.

The next morning I realized I had no phone service and spent over 8 hours with Straight Talk support. One of the representatives noticed the SIM card serial number was different than the one I had. I swapped my SIM card back and had service again. Changed the passwords on my email accounts and deleted the app passwords they generated because that was all I thought they did. Two days later, I get a bunch of emails from Coinbase saying my transfer funds were not approved. TWO WHOLE DAYS. Called my bank and am in the process of getting a new account. Since Coinbase does not have a live representative to talk to, I have still been unable to get access to my account to see the damage that was done.

I am estimating about $30,000-$50,000 was stolen and there is not a single thing I am able to do about it. Let my mistake of not transferring my crypto to my hardware wallet and not updating important passwords more frequently be lesson to you.

If anyone knows if I am able to do anything about this, I would appreciate the advice and assistance. Unfortunately this event has hit more severely than usual seeing how I am currently unemployed and unable to receive unemployment assistance after my military service. My friends have said I may have a case to sue Straight Talk for gross negligence of not properly authenticating me before swapping my SIM, but I see in the past that has not won any cases.

Submitted August 25, 2021 at 03:44AM by Mountain_Ad8844 https://ift.tt/3sMeG8N